


Falter

by apollaskywalker



Series: Benjamin and Mary Tallmadge [9]
Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Family, Gen, Miscarriage, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 23:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11301138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apollaskywalker/pseuds/apollaskywalker
Summary: "There was no falter in his step."Mary knows better.





	Falter

“There was no falter in his step.”

Mary knows better. He faltered every step of the way.

She holds him when his nightmares torture him, when he breaks and sobs for every man he should have been able to save, for every man’s death that he should have prevented.

_Nathan Hale, Nathaniel Sackett, Lucas Brewster, Water Havens, Sarah Livingston, Newt Bascombe…_

The list goes on, some names she knows, some names she doesn’t.

She sees him falter when William learns to walk. Ben is never far behind, ready to catch him, should he fall. But falling is part of learning to walk and soon Mary finds tasks to busy Ben’s hands and attention so William can stumble, can fall, stub his toes, and even scrape his knee. William cries to her, she kisses his scrapes, and he shows Ben, babbling about his boo-boo.

When Maria is old enough to invite her father to play, Mary watches her Colonel – a man who gave orders in battle, who argued with his superior officers, who told the enemy where to stick his rifle – submit utterly to a four year old telling him the number of cookies he may eat.

Ben had no sisters and Anna had been happy to play their boyish games. Ben knows nothing of how to play with dolls, so he lets Maria lead him through their play. He glances up frequently at Mary, asking silently, “Is this right?”

The first child she loses stains their bed with the blood that was supposed to have sustained it. Ben holds her, quaking, apologizes for whatever he did wrong.

He apologizes later for not being stoic. For not knowing how to help her.

Her bumbling Benjamin turned his faltering into paltering Congressional speeches, turned his faltering into fathering, and every faltering step looked to others like sauntering.

Mary knows better.

**Author's Note:**

> One of Ben's fellow soldiers wrote of him that "there was no falter in his step." That's the "prompt", if you will.


End file.
